


A place to suddenly solve a mystery.

by LittleSweetCheeks



Series: The Hearth Series [22]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Gen, Thinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 20:09:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13488852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSweetCheeks/pseuds/LittleSweetCheeks
Summary: Dave stood in his empty kitchen and sipped his scotch. Something had been bothering him for weeks, maybe even longer.





	A place to suddenly solve a mystery.

** A place to suddenly solve a mystery. **

Dave stood in his empty kitchen and sipped his scotch. Something had been bothering him for weeks, maybe even longer. Sure, the entire team had been a mess since Emily’s funeral, but Hotch had been… off…even by comparison. Taking another sip, he let the amber liquid roll around in his mouth as the days rolled around in his mind.

When Emily had been rushed to the hospital, it had been Hotch that had jumped into the first SUV to follow the ambulance, not even giving Morgan a backward glance as he rushed to keep track of their fallen friend.

When everyone else made it to the hospital, Hotch had pulled JJ aside immediately, whispering what Dave had assumed at the time were instructions to get information. Everyone else had take a space in the waiting room while Hotch had paced the corridors, agitated.

Dave thought on that a minute. The doctors had said she’d died in surgery, a tragedy. While the rest of the team pulled together… His glass landed hard on the counter. “Son of a bitch.” He muttered.

He’d seen every one of his best friend’s moods over the years. Angry, apprehensive…distraught. When he’d mentioned to him earlier that night about what the Brit had said, about saving Prentiss, his eyes had filmed over with tears and his voice had cracked. And that was at just the idea of losing her.

The hours in the waiting room as Aaron had silently vanished and reappeared with no word from JJ, it had seemed normal at the time. But then, they had all been focused in themselves.

With the benefit of weeks of hindsight, Dave could see it now. Aaron had been stressed and the stress was starting to take a visible toll, but the stress wasn’t the same as the mourning everyone else had been displaying so openly. He wondered if he shouldn’t check in on JJ, see what she looked like because Rossi had a feeling, given the secretive conversations he’d seen the to have around the funeral, that if there was something to know, she knew it.

 


End file.
